Woman Who Killed Mother Denied Harvard Admission

By FOX BUTTERFIELD

Published: April 8, 1995

BOSTON, April 7—
Harvard University has rescinded its offer of early admission to what had seemed to be a perfect candidate after learning that she had killed her mother five years ago.

The candidate, Gina Grant, 19, a high school senior, is a straight-A student, captain of her school tennis team and has taught biology to underprivileged sixth- and seventh-graders in Cambridge, Mass. But in 1990, in what Ms. Grant said was an attempt to defend herself from an alcoholic parent and what prosecutors called a vicious murder, Ms. Grant bludgeoned her mother to death in Lexington, S.C.

A spokesman for Harvard, Joe Wrinn, declined to discuss the case, citing the university's policy of protecting the privacy of applicants. In a written statement, Mr. Wrinn said only that Harvard from time to time withdraws admission offers "if a student engages in behavior that brings into question honesty, maturity or moral character" or "in the event any part of the application contains misrepresentations."

In a statement today, Ms. Grant said she was "deeply disappointed" with Harvard's action, since she had served her sentence for the crime, six months in a locked juvenile center, and because she believed "that the promise of the juvenile justice system" is a fresh start.

"I deal with this tragedy every day on a personal level," she said in the statement. "It serves no good purpose for anyone else to dredge up the pain of my childhood. I'm especially distressed that my college career may now be in jeopardy."

Richard Gelles, the director of the Family Violence Research Program at the University of Rhode Island, said that it was highly unusual for a girl to kill her mother and that there was almost always some form of abuse involved. "I think Harvard is being a little hasty, because this doesn't portend anything else about the rest of her life," he said.

By rescinding her acceptance, Professor Gelles said, Harvard "has proved why she was right in the first place" not to disclose the incident.

Ms. Grant had answered "no" to a question on Harvard's admission form asking if "in the last three years you have incurred serious or repeated disciplinary action or if you have ever been dismissed, suspended or separated from school" or placed on probation. The question is generally taken to refer to actions taken in and by school authorities.

Ms. Grant was told by Harvard in December that she had been admitted. Only exceptional candidates are admitted under such a plan.

Ms. Grant's background came to light after The Boston Globe published a story about her last Sunday as an extraordinary example of children who have proved resilient in overcoming troubled backgrounds. At the time, The Globe did not know that Ms. Grant had pleaded no contest to killing her mother with a lead crystal candleholder. It quoted her only as saying that her father had died of cancer when she was 11 years old and that her mother had died under circumstances that Ms. Grant told the reporter for The Globe were too painful to describe.

For the last two years, Ms. Grant has been living alone in an apartment in Cambridge, getting straight A's at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and tutoring underprivileged youths. She had moved to Cambridge from South Carolina after a judge there decided to release her in the custody of an aunt and uncle who live in Massachusetts.

The Globe in its article on Sunday quoted her guidance counselor, Gordon Axtman, as saying of Ms. Grant, "She is definitely one of the most exceptional kids I've had in 20 years at this school."

After the publication of the article in The Globe, an anonymous person had copies of earlier articles from a South Carolina newspaper about the killing of Ms. Grant's mother hand-delivered to Harvard, said her lawyer here, Margaret Burnham.

Copies of the stories were also sent to The Globe, which reported the killing and Harvard's decision to rescind its admission this morning. The exact circumstances of the killing of Ms. Grant's mother, Dorothy Mayfield, have been in dispute.

Her former lawyer in South Carolina, Jack Swerling, said in a telephone interview that Ms. Grant had been "an exceptionally bright, affable, well-adjusted and charitable" student in junior high school at the time. She grew up in a middle-class household in Lexington, S.C., a suburb of Columbia. Her father was an engineer and her mother was an executive secretary. But Mr. Swerling said Ms. Grant's life became very difficult after her father died of cancer in 1987 and her mother, already a heavy drinker, began to drink more.

"There was a lot of emotional abuse," Mr. Swerling said, and at least the threat of physical abuse.

On the night of the killing, Sept. 13, 1990, an autopsy found that her mother's blood alcohol level was three times the standard often used to legally define intoxication.

But Donnie Myers, the solicitor, or prosecutor, for Lexington County, said that references to abuse were exaggerated and that investigation had shown that Ms. Grant and her mother had quarreled over the mother's strict rules. The arguments were particularly bitter when they concerned her mother's efforts to keep Ms. Grant from staying out late with her 15-year-old boyfriend, Jack Hook, who had a juvenile criminal record, Mr. Myers said.

Eventually, Ms. Grant pleaded no contest to manslaughter for striking her mother 13 times in the head with the candleholder.

Mr. Myers said Mr. Hook had arrived after the killing and had tried to make it look like a suicide by sticking a knife in Mrs. Mayfield's neck and then wrapping her hand around it. Mr. Hook pleaded no contest to being an accessory.

Ms. Grant was given widespread public support in South Carolina at the time of her trial, said John Allard, a reporter for The State newspaper in Columbia, who covered the incident.

Ms. Burnham said that Ms. Grant had consulted her trial lawyer, Mr. Swerling, about filling out the Harvard application and that he had advised her that the question concerning disciplinary actions did not apply and that she had effectively served her court sentence and should be able to start again.

In an interview Mr. Swerling added: "This girl has paid her debt. That chapter in her life should have been closed and she should have been able to start over."

Ms. Burnham said that she was in contact with Harvard, asking the university to reconsider its decision, but that Ms. Grant was now also awaiting word from several other colleges to which she has applied. Ms. Burnham would not say whether Ms. Grant had been more explicit about her past to the other colleges.

Photos: Gina Grant, an honors student who killed her mother. (Associated Press) (pg. 1); Gina Grant after a 1990 police hearing. Her admission to Harvard was rescinded after the university learned she had killed her mother. (Associated Press) (pg. 12)